Wade H. McCree

Wade Hampton McCree, Jr. (July 3, 1920 – August 30, 1987) was the first African American judge appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit and the second African American solicitor general in the history of the United States.

McCree was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and attended Boston Latin School. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated "summa cum laude" from Fisk University in 1941. After a four-year stint in the Army during World War II, he graduated 12th in his class from Harvard Law School in 1948.

McCree and his wife, Dores moved to her hometown of Detroit, Michigan. There, McCree entered into private practice at the legendary black law firm of Bledsoe & Taylor. In 1953 he was appointed to the Workman's Compensation Commission by Governor G. Mennen Williams. Two years later he became the first African-American to be named a judge of the Circuit Court for Wayne County, Michigan.

President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1961, another first for an African-American. In 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. He served there until 1977, when he left to become United States Solicitor General, the second African-American to hold that office – Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was the first. President Jimmy Carter, who nominated McCree to the post, said at his memorial service that McCree was "a true American hero".

Often called the "10th Justice", McCree served as solicitor general for four years. He stepped down in 1981 to become the Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, a position he held until his death. As solicitor general, McCree personally argued 25 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, including the Richard Nixon presidential tapes case and the "Bakke" "reverse discrimination" case.

In 1981 he accepted appointment as Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught until his death. During these years he also consulted on various cases and served as Special Master for the U.S. Supreme Court in cases in which it exercised original jurisdiction.

McCree died at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit on August 30, 1987. A hospital spokesman told the New York Times that McCree had died of a heart attack, and that McCree had been in the process of being treated for heart ailments and cancer, according to a Times article that appeared on September 1, 1987.

McCree's daughter, Kathleen McCree Lewis, was nominated by President Clinton to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1999. However, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate failed to act on Lewis' nomination.

McCree is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery.